A lot of you have been asking me when VS 2008 SP1 will ship.  I tended to respond with vague answers, including ‘probably soon after SQL 2008 RTMs’.  Well, SQL 2008 RTM’d last week and you may have said to yourself ‘Todd said SP1 was coming soon…’

Well, I’m happy to report that SP1 has shipped – and this includes SP1 for Visual Studio 2008, TFS 2008 and .NET 3.5.  Plenty of bug fixes and tons of new goodies.  Hop over to Brian Harry’s blog for more info and download links.

bharry's WebLog : VS/VSTS/TFS/.NET 3.5 SP1 is shipping!

Oh, how we just love getting new Team System Power Tools!  Grab ‘em while they’re hot!  Details from Brian Harry here :

bharry's WebLog : July '08 Power Tools are available!

Or, if you just can’t wait another second, download right from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=00803636-1d16-4df1-8a3d-ef1ad4f4bbab&displaylang=en.  Enjoy!

If you are not familiar with Sandcastle, it is a tool which takes your source code XML comments and produces beautiful MSDN-style documentation.  Not so long ago, Sandcastle was pulled off of Codeplex because it was in violation of the Codeplex rules (in particular, the project didn't include source code).

There was a lot of debate about this (both externally and internally).  Personally, I was an advocate that we should maintain Sandcastle on Codeplex and include the source code.  I'm extremely happy to report that this is exactly what we decided to do:

Sandcastle : Sandcastle Source Code published in Codeplex

I know a lot of you are interested in SharePoint development, especially with respect to Visual Studio.  I'm happy to tell you that there's a new team blog in town, right from the Visual Studio Business Applications SharePoint Tools QA team (wow -- try fitting that on a business card).  Check it out: http://blogs.msdn.com/vssharepointtoolsblog/archive/2008/07/01/welcome-to-the-visual-studio-sharepoint-tools-blog.aspx

David Scruggs will be presenting a fantastic webcast on integrating TFS and EPM.  From the session abstract:

Project Managers and Development teams may be the “Odd Couple” of the 21st century, working together but having different approaches and perspectives. Integrating Project Server and Team Foundation Server helps them work better, together. We’ll show how to link two different processes running side-by-side in each system, and cover some of the reasons to integrate the two systems, including:

1. Project Management is tracking more than application development, but not all of application development. Integrating lets each camp focus on what's important to them.

2. EPM is getting more formal, with more documentation. Application development is getting leaner. Integrating lets you loosely couple EPM and application development so that they can work together while working differently.

3. Integrating means project managers have real data to “manage to”. Since project managers are often pulling real data from ERP and CRM systems, having real data from application development fills in the missing gaps.

Interested?  Then register for this Friday, August 15th event.  As always, if you cannot make it to the live broadcast, register anyway so you can watch the recording of the event on-demand later. 

Click here to Register Now!

Some of you have asked me in the past if there was support for Rally with TFS.  At the time, I did not have a definitive answer; now I can point you to this exciting blog posting from Ajoy:

ajoyk - VSTS, Process, patterns and practices : Agile Development with Team Foundation Server: Rally and TFS

My good friend and trusted colleague Sajee Mathew will be hosting an Introduction to TFS webcast on Friday, July 11th at 1pm (ET).  From the event description:

“Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Foundation Server is an integrated collaboration server for Visual Studio Team System. It combines team portal, version control, work item tracking, build management, process guidance, and business intelligence into a unified server. It allows everyone on the team to collaborate more effectively and deliver better quality software.  Discover how TFS can help your team deliver better software.”

This is a great opportunity to brush up on your TFS knowledge or educate some of your teammates.  There should even be time for Q&A at the end.  Register here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=AB-B6-B7-A1-32-D7-52-1E-74-77-6E-AB-A8-5E-40-6D&culture=en-US.

One of the most common questions I hear when talking about the Database Professional edition is "does it support anything other than SQL Server?"  And my standard response was always "not at this time" --  which was not a real 'no' but more of a 'not yet'.

Well, I'm very glad to report that we've made our first announcements around multi-platform support.  Working in conjunction with IBM, DBPro will be gaining support for DB2!  Read all about it here: DataDude Goes Multi-Platform.  Want to see for yourself?  Learn how to download the preview from here: VSTS 2008 Database Edition GDR June CTP.

So, are SQL and DB2 the only supported platforms?  "Yes, at this time." :) .  Actually, read that 2nd linked posting carefully, and you'll read that "there are others that are working on providers for other database management systems."

The web cast Configuring Team System for Your Environment, which was original scheduled for May 30th, is now scheduled for June 27th @ noon (ET).  The same registration link as before applies: http://tinyurl.com/67n3ub.  My good buddy Ken McArdle will be your guide.

In case you missed it, we recently held a web cast entitled Developing Service Oriented Applications with Visual Studio 2008, WCF and WF - All the cool kids are doing it! presented by none other than DPE legend Allan Da Costa Pinto.  You can view the recording by registering for the event here: http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/InviteOnly.aspx?EventID=D8-BB-12-4D-35-7D-69-E4-B2-81-E9-98-64-DA-9B-ED&Culture=en-US.

We are currently planning our web cast topics for the remainder of the calendar year.  Now's the time to voice your choice!  If you've got ideas for web cast topics, please get them to me, either via the contact link on this blog, or simply post a comment here.

Last year my friends in Canada held a web cast series for aspiring architects that was attended by over 1200 individuals and covered a number of strategies that can help developers and IT professionals to transition to the architect roles. The Aspiring Architect Series 2008 builds on last year’s content and covers a number of topics that are important for architects to understand.  Please make sure that you have gone through the 2007 series which can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/mohammadakif/archive/tags/Aspiring+Architects/default.aspx . We are hopeful that you will find the upcoming series to be a very useful investment of your time.

(all times listed are Eastern USA/Canada)

June 16^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Introduction to the aspiring architect Web Cast series

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380836&Culture=en-CA

June 17^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture and Enterprise Service Bus – Beyond the hype

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380838&Culture=en-CA

June 18^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – TOGAF and Zachman, a real-world perspective

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380840&Culture=en-CA

June 19^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Services Oriented Architecture (web cast in French-- I did mention this was from Canada, right?)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380842&Culture=en-CA

June 20^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Interoperability (web cast in French)

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380844&Culture=fr-CA

June 23^rd , 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Realizing dynamic systems

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380846&Culture=en-CA

June 24^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Web 2.0, beyond the hype

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380848&Culture=en-CA

June 25^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Architecting for the user experience

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380850&Culture=en-CA

June 26^th, 2008 – 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. – Conclusion and next steps

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032380852&Culture=en-CA

I promised you guys I'd provide a cheat sheet for everything I presented at my web cast "Amazing Things You Don't Know About Visual Studio 2008, But Should!"  Here it is.

(Want to see the web cast again?  It's now available on-demand.  Simply follow the link you got in your registration email.  Don't have the link handy, or were you not registered for the live event?  No problem -- just click here to register now and you'll also get access to the on-demand version.)

My first bit of advice was to learn your key bindings.  Want a poster to remind you of them all?

Visual Basic 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster

Visual C# 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster

Visual C++ 2008 Keybinding Reference Poster

You'll note that they are grouped into themes, which each binding in each theme typically starting with the same keystroke combination.  For example, in C#, all window commands start with CTRL+W, all refactoring operations start with CTRL+R and all editing commands start with CTRL+K.

Here are the keystrokes that I highlighted in particular:

To everyone who attended my web cast "Amazing Things You Don't Know About Visual Studio, but Should!", a very sincere thank you from me and the entire East Region DPE team!  It was great to have such a large turn-out.  I apologize for any audio issues (e.g. the bad echo at the start of the session) and the parts of the demo that didn't work (see explanations below).

The recording of the session will be available shortly; I'll post back here with links as soon as I have them.  I forgot to hit the record button at the very beginning, so the first few minutes will be missing.  For the parts of the demo that didn't work live, I'll likely post short video clips here of those pieces working.

Here are the Next Steps details from the last slide of the presentation (all times Eastern USA):

• Any questions, comments or concerns: vs08east@microsoft.com
  
  Previous and Up-Coming Sessions:
  
• On demand: Database Change Management Using Team System 2008
  • http://tinyurl.com/6qtcdq
• 16-May-2008 1:00 PM: Code Metrics: A yardstick for your code
  • http://tinyurl.com/5otzem
• 30-May-2008 1:00 PM: Configuring Team System For Your Environment
  • http://tinyurl.com/67n3ub

I still owe all of you a cheat sheet of all of the shortcuts that I used today, plus those dialog box options; I will post these soon.

Okay, so why did some of my demo not work as expected?

When I renamed LoadImages() to be LoadImagez() and hoped it would be flagged as a spelling error, I forgot that spelling errors are only identified on publicly exposed items.  My LoadImagez() method was marked private.  I quick change to public and volia!:

Why couldn't I single-step into the MemoryStream ctor to show the .NET Framework source code?  I'm really not sure; after the presentation, I closed and restarted Visual Studio, and this feature worked just fine.  Ah, the joy of live demos...!

If you stuck around to the end, you would have seen that, in fact, Excel did load my custom ribbon UI and my button worked.  It just took awhile for everything to load.

Partner Huddle is a private Facebook group for Microsoft Partners delivering custom developed solutions for the Microsoft .NET platform. This group serves as a forum for Microsoft and Microsoft Partners to share best practices; highlight early adoption success stories; increase awareness of Microsoft sponsored or partner sponsored readiness training; and increase awareness and enrollment in Microsoft early adoption programs. More importantly it provides a forum for members to socialize ideas that will strengthen and improve the Microsoft partnership at all levels within a partner organization (developers, architects, directors etc.). In a little over 4 months the group has grown to over 180 members.

If you work for a Microsoft partner and are interesting in joining, drop me a line and I'll reply back with the private link to join.  I hope you will consider joining this group today and become an integral part of this social network to help improve the quality and value of being a Microsoft Partner!

Nothing like a good 'ol vacation to get in the way of posting for a blog series.  So, where were we?  Ah, yes -- time to install SQL Server.

Technically, we've got two choices: some flavor of SQL Server 2005 or some flavor of SQL Server 2008.  Now, some would say that this means there is really only one choice -- SQL Server 2005.  Let's think about it:

So many reasons to go with SQL Server 2005...but that last point is hard for someone like me to ignore.  I love playing with new toys!  And at Microsoft we proudly dogfood our products before we release them.  So, as foolish as it may be, I'm gonna install SQL Server 2008.

[Anticipate a blog posting within the next 6 months entitled What Was I Thinking?!]

Okay, so were do we start?  Well, I start at the same place you can start: by downloading the February 2008 CTP of SQL Server 2008, available here: Microsoft SQL Server 2008 CTP, February 2008.

I'm going to use the X86 DVD image, as that will easily mount and install into my VPC.

Okay, I fire up my VPC and mount SQLDEV.iso into it:

splash.hta is the correct file to run.  This leads to:

Those of you with eagle eyes may notice that, in the lower left-hand corner, it says November 2007!  Well, no worries -- this was an inadvertent mistake when the CTP was put together.  If you had looked very closely, there was a transient splash screen which came and went quickly that did, in fact, say 'Feb CTP'.  And, just to be sure, we'll confirm once everything is installed that we've got the Feb CTP.

Side note: when I first saw November 2007 on the main installer screen, I thought I had done something wrong -- I did not notice the quickly vanishing 'Feb CTP' on my first install.  I contacted some of my local SQL buddies at Microsoft to see if they knew anything.  I have to give mad props to my good friend Sumi Dua, Data Platform Technical Specialist here in the northeast, for digging deep on trying to understand what was going on.  Only problem is, I neglected to tell him that I was using the ISO image.  He repeatedly downloaded the stand-alone installer (exe) and never saw what I was seeing.  He stayed well past 5pm looking into this, and was still at it the next day, before we realized we were looking at two different versions of the installer.

He tells me I owe him a Zune...(in my house we've got several of them.)

Click to install the server components:

We need .NET Framework 3.5.  Go ahead and install it.

Click Exit.

Accept the license terms and click Next.

Click Install.

Click New Installation.

Click Next.

Select Database Engine Services, Analysis Services and Reporting Services, as these are needed.  I'm also picking Client Tools and SQL Server Books online so I can manage SQL Server right from this VPC.

Click Next.

Default instance is fine for our purposes.  Click Next.

Okay, now we need to adjust how the various SQL services will log in and start.  We want all of them to run as NETWORK SERVICE and to automatically start.  So, in the Account field enter NETWORK SERVICE.  Click Apply to all.  Change all Startup Types to Automatic.

Click Next.

Set authentication to Windows authentication mode.  Click Add Current User then Next.

Again, click Add Current User then Next.

Click Install, but do not configure the report server. Click Next.

At this dialog, it's your choice; defaults are fine.  Next.

Almost there!!!  Click Install and grab a cup of joe...

...Approximately 20 minutes later:

Click Next.

Click Close.

Click OK.

Restart the server...

...and now that it has, let's take a quick peek over at the services and see what's running:

Looking good -- everything is started, except for SQL Server Browser, which is set to Disabled.  Not sure why -- not sure I need to worry about it.  I won't lose any sleep over it just yet.

Let's fire up SQL Server Management Studio and see if our new installation is visible.

Looks good to me.

We should also check the SQL Server Configuration Manager and make sure TCP/IP is an enabled protocol.

Zoiks!  It is not.  Double-click on TCP/IP:

and change Enabled to Yes.  Click OK.

Looks like we need to restart a service.  Switch over to the SQL Server Services node, right-click on SQL Server (MSSQLSERVER), and choose Restart.

My buddy Rob Walters recommends doing a SELECT @@VERSION to really be sure I've got the right version installed:

Microsoft SQL Server code name "Katmai" (CTP) - 10.0.1300.13 (Intel X86)   Feb  8 2008 00:06:52   Copyright (c) 1988-2007 Microsoft Corporation  Developer Edition on Windows NT 6.0 <X86> (Build 6001: Service Pack 1)

Perfect!

If you are a regular reader of the blog, you likely know about the wonderfulness that is Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition.  If not, or if you are a SQL-kind-of-person who is not using the Database Edition, then I highly encourage you to check out this webcast!

Database Change Management Using Team System 2008

Ever make a bunch of changes to your database then lose track of what you’ve changed? Frustrated with trying to come up with consistent, “meaningful” test data to test your applications? Wish you could unit test your database? Ever forget to make a backup copy of your stored procedure before you made that one line change (that happens to crash the system)? Tired of feeling like you’re not part of the team? We’ll take a look at how Team System can help ease the pain of database development and change management.

Who should attend?

Developers who work with SQL Server, Application development managers, Database administrators

Host and Moderator

Jim Blizzard (http://snowstormlife.com) is the Developer Solution Specialist for Microsoft accounts in Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, and is based out of Tampa, Florida. Jim worked previously for Microsoft Consulting Services in the application development space, focusing on web and smart client development, and was a Developer Evangelist for Microsoft, spreading the good news of .NET to the masses in the Pacific Northwest. He has been involved in application development for over 20 years.

Click here to Register Now!

Register by phone: 877-673-8368 and reference Event ID: 1032374482

Database Change Management Using Team System 2008

Date: Friday, April 11, 2008

Time: 10:00–12:00 ET

Location: Live Meeting

Phone: 888-458-9977

PARTICIPANT PASSCODE: 2901947

Can’t make it to the Live Meeting? Check out the webcast on demand. Visit http://msevents.microsoft.com/cui/default.aspx?culture=en-US and search for Event ID 1032374483. The on demand version will be available @ 2:00am on April 12, 2008.